


Cinders

by capalxii



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 08:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1461856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capalxii/pseuds/capalxii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is, fundamentally, a selfish man. Dark-ish Twelve, written months before series 8 premieres.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cinders

Hearts. He has his hearts. The fire is still burning him up from the inside, golden in his eyes and bitter in his mouth, stuttering through his neural pathways like a virus. He can't remember, for a moment, how to move; then, slowly, the muscles in his legs respond, the muscles in his torso turn him, and he walks.

Through the fog of this new life breathed into him, he sees her face, her eyes, and they are so sad that he can't help but wonder what he's done wrong. This is what is scorched onto him at birth: her fear of him, her body moving away from his even as he inches closer.

*

The fire stays. There are moments where he isn't sure--is it the afterburn, cinders flaring sporadically in the dark, or is it just him, the new him, awful and brash and knife-sharp around the edges. But it is better to think that the infection inside him is still raging, than to think that it is just who he is now.

The only times he welcomes the fire is when he finds himself protecting her. When the heat surges through him whispering her name, and he finds he can channel that heat towards whatever is threatening her--he welcomes it gladly. 

*

He knows she makes an effort to love him, or more accurately, that she makes an effort to show that love. That she would eventually love him is itself effortlessly believable, because she'd loved him in totality before, but after the first few days when she had feared him and what he had become, she has made an effort to show it as much as possible. Her hands touch his face, her arms wrap around him, her fingers lace together with his, and if he is unable to show gratefulness, that doesn't mean he doesn't feel it.

Still, while she sleeps, when it is him alone, not even the TARDIS can quell the energy that hums under his skin. There is a voice that he knows is his own, whispering the memory of her fear, mocking the notion that her love will last when she finds out what he's grown into.

*

Clara is as quick as any human, which is to say that she is far quicker than most would have given her credit for. Her hands linger in his some days, when he finds that a haze of gold distorts everything he sees. Her fingers run slower through his hair. The fear in her eyes returns, but it's not--and he is grateful for this--a fear of him, as much as it is a fear for him. 

When she asks, "What is going on in that silly old head of yours," he hears the murmur of that fear beneath the soft, sweet smile of her voice. His answer is abrasive before he knows what he's saying, pushing her away before she can burn herself on him, and the fire juts and spikes when he sees that she does not flinch--she is used to this. He wants nothing more than to shed everything about himself.

*

It takes him longer than it should to realize what this sickness in him is: the High Council granted Clara's wish to save him, but it came at a cost. They are trying to tether themselves to him, attempting to wrap a chain around every second of his being, hook a thorn into every moment of his existence, reaching out through time and through the universe itself to bleed him for their uses.

But they are not the first to lurch into his time stream; it takes him even longer to connect these two facts. 

*

"Do you remember any of it?" He asks Clara this question with a voice he hopes isn't urgent. "Any of when you--" When she created countless splinters of herself through his life, her messy, jagged edges cutting through not him but through anything that tried to harm him: he leaves that unspoken but she picks up on it anyway. 

"I still don't." She has answered this question before, but is patient with him because she is curious of this mystery. She knows that he keeps asking for a reason, and he knows that she will eventually figure out why, but he hopes that she won't figure it out before he has the answers he needs. "The dreams have stopped, too," she adds, and he wants to say she is lying but he doesn't know why, doesn't know if he's reading her properly or if it's his own paranoia telling him that.

*

When he does sleep, he still dreams, just as he'd told Clara so long ago. But they are no longer dreams of home, or if they are, they're twisted, fun-house mirror versions of it. Silver kaden-wood leaves glowing red with the reflection of wildfires, the sound of desert rain replaced with the distant psychic howl of the Yssgaroth, the sweetness of a kiss and the softness of his bed twisting into the feel of a gag pressed against his tongue and stone under his back.

After those dreams, he wakes in a sweat, skin burning and hands twitching with unspent energy, hearts set to burst as he hears a whisper, fading as sleep departs, "You are not hers, she cannot protect you from this. You will fight for us once more."

*

The first time he walks to the console room after a dream, he never makes it there. He wants to take his mind off things, to bury himself in work, to cool down by focusing on the minor repairs and maintenance that the TARDIS always seemed to want. The TARDIS has shifted halls on him--it's not the first time she's done it, but it's the first time in a long time that he senses she's done it purposely, done it coaxingly, as he finds himself outside Clara's door. He walks back to his room, knowing that she will let him, and stays there until he is sure Clara is awake and only then does the TARDIS allow him to go where he wants. Clara is already there, a cup of tea in her hands and another waiting for him near the console.

It keeps happening, and Clara seems to realize that it's happening though she never says a word. Finally, after so many nights, the TARDIS does not let him go back. It keeps returning him to Clara's door until he knocks, hesitantly. The door opens on its own; she is seated in her bed, curled up with a book, looking at him expectantly and saying, "I'm glad you didn't walk away this time," as if he'd had any choice in the matter.

*

He is, fundamentally, a selfish man. In his haste to protect her from himself, he has neglected to find out whether he is causing more harm than good. And when she tells him, "I didn't know what you were dreaming, but I could feel it, only a little," he is stricken; of course her entering his time stream would do more than just mirror her soul across his life, of course there would be repercussions. He should have known when Clara and the old girl started getting along--the TARDIS could create echoes to protect them, and once she realized Clara would do the same for her thief they must have come to an understanding--he should have known then that there had been something deeper at work, but he had been stupid. 

Clara, mortal and fragile and small and painfully human, had done the impossible: she had imprinted herself onto him, and had linked her essence to his. She knew what was happening. And as the Time Lords sought to sink their tendrils in him, sending a message to him that he owed them his life even as he had granted them more than they could fathom, their claws hit against the shield of her existence and her realities. He is lucky, and so is she, that they do not want to reach her directly--but he had been stupid to think that she could not sense it at all.

*

"I have loved you my entire life," he murmurs into her hair. "For centuries. I can't help this."

Clara is asleep; the TARDIS knew better than him what he needed, and knew exactly what Clara was willing to give, and what she is willing to give is the feel of her pulse under his hands, the steady rise and fall of her chest beside him as she sleeps. It's enough to take the edge off the fever, which means it is enough to dissipate the negativity that Clara had been feeling, but a new fear arises. The voice inside him tells him now that her love cannot last, simply because _she_ cannot. The Doctor doesn't know what he'll do when she leaves. He doesn't know how to fight this battle alone.

*

"You'll never be rid of me," Clara says with a smile, all dimples and sparkle in her eyes, when he confesses this fear. It's the sweet sort of lie adults tell children who fear death, and she tells it so easily that he almost believes it.

The TARDIS believes it, but it's not a lie for her and for a moment he finds himself jealous. The TARDIS understands time differently, and encompasses it differently, and Clara will be with her forever and has been with her forever. An entire lifetime for Clara would only be the briefest second for him, and a part of him wishes he had died on Trenzalore with her tucked away safe--but he balks against his own selfish tendencies, since what would the risks Clara has taken for him mean if he'd died after all she'd done to protect him? He banishes the wish to the corners of his mind, and decides to believe her lie if only for a moment. 

*

She kisses him once, when he's on the cusp of a dream. He's not sure if she'd kissed him because she'd thought he was asleep, or because she'd wanted him awake. When his eyes open, he sees her looking down at him. "Hey," she murmurs. "You all right?"

He can't remember if he is or isn't. Something prickles under his skin, and on the back of his neck, and he thinks he can feel spikes around his lungs. Some part of him is still worth fearing, and another part of him wants to push her to safety, wants to tell her that her very first reaction to him had been the right one. There is a heated insistence in his veins, however, that is different than before, and his hearts pick up speed at her proximity and the shine of her eyes. "Yes," he says; it's honest in the second that he threads his fingers through her messy hair and pulls her down for another kiss, and it's honest when she sighs against his mouth and drapes herself over his body.

*

She is here, in that breath, and it is enough to feel safe. He is, fundamentally, a selfish man, and he intends to hold on to her as long as he is able.


End file.
